


Verity

by the_impossible_river



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_impossible_river/pseuds/the_impossible_river
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>verity, noun: "a true principle or belief, especially one of fundamental importance".</p><p>Trapped in a mental institution, River Song is plagued with nightmares so real that they feel like memories. Yet she is told that all they are are dreams and the reason she can barely remember anything about her past is because she was in a terrible accident. But River feels otherwise. And a new Doctor, an inpatient and an intern who all look very familiar may be able to confirm her suspicions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

_"Reality is what you see. When what you see shifts, departing from anyone else's reality, it's still reality to you."_

- _Marya Hornbacher, Madness: A Bipolar Life_

The only thing she is sure of is that she is alone.

She isn’t sure where she is. She isn’t sure why she is here. She isn’t even sure who she is; she has a feeling that she was someone once, a very long time ago, but that identity had been taken from her, stolen away and molded until it was disfigured. Now she drifts through space, unable to understand. Who is she? What is her purpose?

_Kill._

That single word. It’s that word every time. All she understands from it is that it is an order. It could be to her, telling her to kill someone, to reach out into the blankness and snap the neck of an invisible figure. Or it could be the stuff of her worst fears. The order given that demands her death. However, tonight she learns, when the word is joined by another to form a sentence. She learns what she is meant to do. 

 _Kill the Doctor_.

She doesn’t know who the Doctor is, but the very thought of killing him sends a wave of nausea through her body. She doubles over and throws up. It dissipates within a few seconds and she watches. In that moment she realizes nothing here is real, but at the same time, it is reality to her. 

She opens her mouth and utters a single word. _No_. 

Pain rages through her body like never before. It’s like she has a thousand volts surging through her body, splitting every single cell into two, killing them one at a time, killing her slowly. She screams and screams but no one can hear her scream for this is her reality. No one else is there.

Images fill her head. A little girl, alone in the dark, in a scary orphanage. A man with empty eyes coming in and telling her that she has visitors, her shaking her head, her desperately begging that the visitors not be let in. But it’s too late. The man doesn’t listen, the man never listens. Instead, they enter. She tries to strain to see what they look like. But she _can’t remember_.

Switch to a library. The same girl, but older, different. A woman with an eyepatch appearing, speaking in riddles, rhymes and old songs that haven’t been sung in a thousand years. The revelation of an identity and the beginning of the story. The girl begins to become frightened, but it’s too late, they are there, sedating her, trapping her in an astronaut suit and submerging her in a lake. She tries to remember, she tries and tries, but she _can’t remember_ who ‘they’ are.

More images appear of the same girl. The top of a building under construction, the girl is frightened and jumps out of a window to escape. An unknown base, shooting at things she’s terrified of. A pyramid converted into a military prison, faced with the eyepatch woman. Every single image has one thing in common. She _cannot remember_ _who they are._

There’s someone else in the images; a man in a suit and bowtie with a funny screwdriver. He’s always there. Always there to comfort the girl. He holds her in his arms and rocks her gently as she sobs, uncontrollably. She doesn’t want to sob in his arms, she doesn’t want to sob in front of him, but she can’t help it, it feels comforting. But there are moments where he isn’t kind, where he is almost cruel and every time she sees him do something less than satisfactory, it sends a stab of pain across her heart.

The images ease for a minute and a mirror appears. She cautiously approaches in and peers in to the stained, dirty reflective surface. She runs a finger over her cheek and when the figure in the mirror does the same, she is shocked. Because the figure in the mirror resembles someone. It lets her answer one of her earlier questions. 

 _Who am I_?

She is the girl in the images.

 _Who is the Doctor_?

Her memories are coming back now. The Doctor is the man in the suit and the bowtie.

_Who are they?_

The pain comes back. It’s worse this time and she drops to her knees, screaming and crying, begging for it to stop. She doesn’t understand what she’s done to deserve this, she doesn’t understand why she’s here.

“Please!” she screams. “Please! I’ll do anything you want, I promise! Just stop!”

It stops. 

And she falls. She falls and she falls and she falls, not knowing how, where or why she falling. 

Suddenly, it stops.

And River Song awakens from her nightmare, breathless.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”_

- **_Erich Fromm: The Sane Society_**

 

“You had another dream last night, didn’t you?”

Silence. 

“The wards heard you screaming.”

Silence.

“Doctor Song, you’re an intelligent woman. You do understand that we’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t speak to me.”

River Song shifts uncomfortably in the plastic white chair. She squints, trying to focus on the face of the psychologist in front of her, but finds difficulty because the sun is glaring in from the window behind him. The rays dance on the white surfaces of the office, making them seem even more pristine. She doesn’t know why, but she hates it.

“Why didn’t they do anything?” she says quietly. 

“I’m sorry?”

“If they heard me screaming, why didn’t they do anything?”

The doctor purses his lips, making him look as if he’s been sucking on a sour lemon. River fixes him with a stony stare, her green-grey eyes baring into him, daring him to reply. 

“We wanted to see how the dream played out, if you would say anything that might clue us in on why you’re having these nightmares, or what they’re about. You still don’t remember anything about them?”

She remembers every detail, every face, every sensation, even though she wants nothing more than to forget it. But she shakes her head, proclaiming that she knows nothing. The psychologist thinks she knows nothing, when in reality, he knows nothing. 

“I just remember feeling scared.” 

“Wards reported that you were screaming. You were begging for someone to stop. Why?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Doctor Song…”

“I told you! _I don’t know!_ Why is this so important to you anyway?”

The psychologist inhales deeply and shuts the file open on his desk. River can see a photo of herself glinting up from the front cover. She wonders what lies the doctor writes about her in there. They must be lies. He doesn’t know the truth. Or rather, he does know the truth, but chooses to believe something else.

“Because, River, it’s not normal.”

“Why do you get to define what’s normal? Just because millions of people are similar in an aspect does not mean that it’s normal! It was just a nightmare. That’s all. Isn’t that normal?”

“Doctor Song.”

“What?”

“Having nightmares is perfectly normal. Everyone has nightmares. After what you’ve been through - the train crash – anyone would have nightmares. But your nightmares are different. When you first came here, you remembered those nightmares and you would say they were like memories, you were sure that they were memories. Travelling across the universe in some sort of _blue box_ , being kidnapped as a child, growing up at the same time as your parents, running through time and space…” the psychologist sighs and leans forward. “River, none of that is possible. You do understand that?”

“Yes,” River lies. “I understand that. But I’m sure I’m not dreaming about those things anymore. I can’t remember anything from my dreams. I swear.”

The psychologist raises his eyebrows, as if he doesn’t completely believe her. She stares, meeting his eyes with a cold, calculating gaze that could cut through diamonds in an instant. She is daring him to press her further, to get the information that he suspects she has out of her. Through that gaze, she communicates everything that she will do to him if he does so. He sighs and leans back, averting his eyes. River’s mouth twists up into a tiny smile. She has the power here.

“I believe our time is up,” she says slyly, and before the psychologist can reply, she gets up and walks out.

 --

She is sent back to her room for what the staff call reflection and healing time. She is supposed to be writing in a book provided for her by the hospital about how beneficial her sessions with the psychologist has been, how it has made her feel better. She spills out lies in the black ink, writing all about how she feels enlightened and more confident. She is sure her nightmares will stop, although she does hate how she can’t remember anything. But even if she could remember anything, it wouldn’t matter because they absolutely are not memories.

She finishes up writing her lies. She writes the lies because she knows that when she’s out of her room, the hospital staff read the book to “track her progress”.

She still has half an hour. Quickly checking to make sure that no one is around, she reaches under her bed, lifts up the loose floorboard and extracts her real journal. It’s a vintage-looking blue book bearing resemblance to the blue box in her dreams. It was found in her possession after the crash. She was told it was found empty but she can see that pages have been torn out and words have been erased. She isn’t stupid.

Now, she fills this journal with her real thoughts. Journal-writing comes naturally to her. In her dreams, the girl she sees, the girl that is her, is always carrying the very same blue book that she now holds in her hands. She writes in it, all sorts of things about her adventures. This is one of the things that makes River sure that her dreams are not, in fact, dreams, but are memories. There are too many coincidences, too many intersections with what very well could be real life for them to be dreams.

 _Then why is everyone telling me that they are dreams?_

River writes and writes. She writes about her nightmares in incredible detail, trying to remember everything she can. If these dreams are truly windows into her past life then she needs to find out everything she can, so that she can remember who she is. She can’t remember much about her time before the mental institution in her conscious state. The doctors attribute this to the train crash that she was supposedly in. But the thing is, she can’t remember anything about the crash. As far as she is concerned, it never happened.

The things in the dreams did. But they don’t agree. 

Sometimes River wonders if she really is crazy, like they sometimes say she is. If she really isn’t normal. But she can’t afford to believe that. Something is making her hold on. 

She finishes writing and is trying to put the book away when it falls out of her grasp. She reaches to pick it up and notices it has fallen on to an empty page. There is something on this page, etched into the thickness of the page. She strains her eyes to read it- it has obviously been erased, but they couldn’t remove the indents.

 _I will find you. But until then, you will have to be brave. And don’t forget. No matter what they tell you, believe in what you know is true. And don’t forget._

It’s not her handwriting. 

Someone has left her a message.

 


	3. Chapter 3

  
_“You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission.”_   
**_― Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear it Away_ **   


The nightmares are getting progressively worse. She can’t close her eyes without seeing flashes of images and experiencing a sharp pain. At night, she tosses and turns, screaming, crying, and pounding on the door, desperately begging for help. She wonders how much longer she’ll be able to bear this. Eventually, she knows it will drive her completely insane.

The nightmares haunt her all the time and soon she becomes paranoid. She needs to escape, she knows she needs to escape from them but she doesn’t know how.

Eventually she figures it out.

She awakens from a painful dream, gasping for breath. She shakily reaches for the glass of water on her bedside table, but instead, she finds herself gripping a smooth, glass bottle. She picks it up and brings it to eye level. It’s a bottle of pills. There are instructions written on it.

_Sleep-Inducing Medicine: Take two pills before sleeping._

River uncaps the bottle, shakes two pills out and swallows them. Their effects are immediate. Her eyes begin to droop and her muscles feel as if all of the energy in them has simply evaporated. She curls up into a fetal position, and falls asleep easily.

When she wakes up, she is scared but she has no recollection of a dream.

\--

“Did you have a dream last night?”

“I woke up feeling scared.”

“Did you have a dream?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you sure about that, Doctor Song?”

“Yes. I don’t know if I had a dream or not. It’s all a blank.”

For once, she isn’t lying.

\--

She keeps taking the medicine. Each night, before she sleeps, she gulps the pills down with a wash of water. They travel seamlessly down her throat and into her stomach, where the lining melts away and the chemicals seep into her bloodstream. She falls asleep and wakes up. She falls asleep and wakes up. She can never remember whether or not she has had a dream.

\--

“Do you remember anything from last night?”

“No."

“Do you remember anything from previous nights?”

“No.”

Again, she isn’t lying.

\--

Weeks blur into months. She has forgotten all of her old dreams and the people in them. The doctors tell her this is good and she is on the verge of believing them. She writes her lies in her lie book but slowly; the lies begin to feel like the truth. She can’t remember the truth, or what she thought was the truth, so the lies must be the truth. They’re the only thing solid she has anymore. She stops writing in the blue journal.

She begins to remember things from the train crash she was supposedly in. The images are shiny, but they are there and they are clear. There are only flashes and the people around her are faceless but she can remember, and this is what very nearly convinces her that the doctors are telling her the truth.

But there is something holding her back, something that is preventing her from completely believing them. The message. Every now and then, she picks up the blue journal and traces the faded, indented letters on the page. What does it mean? Who wrote it?

_You will have to be brave._

She isn’t brave. She couldn’t bear the pain of the nightmares. That’s why she took the medicine.

_Believe_.

She isn’t sure she believes in anything anymore.

_Don’t forget._

She has forgotten.

This message, she thinks, is clearly not intended for her. Perhaps the blue book isn’t hers at all, but someone else’s.

She loses hope and then she falls. She believes them.

 

\--

 

_“Madame? We have a report from the institution.”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Everything is going according to plan. The medicine is working. Within a few weeks, River Song shall be ours.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your comments and kudos! I'm so sorry that this chapter is so short! The next one shall definitely be longer ((and the story shall start moving too!))


	4. Chapter 4

_"I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible.”_   
_**― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation** _

River’s life has fallen into a schedule, a fixed routine.  _Wake up, get ready, have breakfast, take pills, go for walk, sit outside, read a book, come inside, eat lunch, take pills, go for afternoon psychology session, write in journal, eat dinner, take pills, sleep._  She adheres to this schedule religiously; everyone else seems to like it, and it gives her some kind of solidarity in a world where she is floating in space. 

Then all of a sudden, without giving any warning, it changes.

~~_(River finds that a lot of things in life happen without warning)_ ~~

At breakfast, she sits alone in the long, white dining hall. She always does. She has no intention of socializing with the other patients, and they have no intention of socializing with her. They ignore her completely; they walk past her with their noses high in the air, as if they are superior to her and she is perfectly fine with that. Let them think what they want to. She takes whatever book she’s reading with her and goes to the hall. She sits at the same table – the one closest to the door, in case she needs to make a quick escape - every day, reads, and eats, alone. Something tells her that even before she came to this place, she was used to being alone.

She doesn’t expect anyone to join her and therefore, is very surprised when someone does. 

A deep blue tray slides along the smooth metal surface of the table, catching River’s eye. She looks up from her book and sees a tall, leggy woman, with impossibly bright ginger hair pull out the chair opposite her and sit down. The woman smiles brightly.

“Hi,” she says. River immediately notices the Scottish lilt in her voice. “You don’t mind if I sit here, right?”

River shakes her head, somewhat hesitantly. The woman looks familiar, but she can’t place her. This isn’t surprising considering her memory fails her whenever she tries the think about times before the institution. The doctors say this is the result of the train crash that she’s just started to remember. “Not at all.”

“Thanks,” the woman smiles again. “My name’s Amy by the way. Well, it’s actually Amelia, but everyone calls me Amy.” She sticks out her hand.

River shakes it. “Amy,” she says thoughtfully. “That name sounds familiar.”

Amy narrows her eyes. “It’s quite a common name,” she says. “Who knows though? We could have met! In a past life.” She says it jokingly, but something about those words haunts River. “And you are?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m River. River Song.”

“That’s an interesting name,” Amy says.“Never met anyone named River before. Were you born with that name, or did you change it later on?”

River thinks, reaching into the corners of her mind, trying to extract information. She can’t remember.

“I think I was born with it,” she says, carefully. “I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t called River.”

“Oh,” Amy says in a subdued voice. “You’re not in here for memory loss, are you?”

“No,” River shakes her head. “Although I can’t really remember much from before I was…in here. I was in a train crash and they tell me I’m suffering from some sort of PTSD. It apparently affects my memory as well. I can’t really remember the train crash either- just bits and pieces, not the whole thing.”

“Oh,” Amy says again, more thoughtfully.

“What are you in here for?” River asks, trying to change the subject. She’s actually quite curious- Amy doesn’t seem crazy, as such.

“Nothing quite so serious,” Amy says, waving her hand dismissively. “Eating disorder,” she rolls her eyes. “I’m a model, you see, so it’s part of my job to be thin. Only some people thought I was, well, a little too thin. So here I am. Just arrived this morning.” She grins. River looks at Amy again and notices that she is indeed, rather skinny. However, she doesn't seem anorexic. River thinks that perhaps she has bulimia; she's heard that bulimics don't neccessarily lose that much weight- instead, it fluctuates.

“You seem quite happy about it.”

“No, not really,” Amy says, although she’s still partly grinning. “I mean, I’m going to miss my friends, and they’re probably going to stuff me with food here so I’ll be quite large when I get back, but at least my husband works here as a nurse. I’m trying to think of it as a holiday, you know?”

A holiday. River thinks the concept is ridiculous. An institution, no matter how pretty it may be, is still an institution and is in no way a holiday resort. She decides to ignore that remark and make conversation using the other information available to her. “How long have you been married for?”

“It’s been about, what, seven years now?” Amy smiles excitedly. “Yeah, I’d say about seven years.”

“Any kids?”

Amy suddenly looks far off and River wonders if she’s overstepped, if children are a sensitive topic with Amy. “We have a daughter,” she replies, quietly, her eyes baring into River’s, searching for something. “Melody. Her name is Melody.”

“That’s a very pretty name,” River says. Melody. Again, the name sounds familiar, even personal. She has a nagging suspicion that she’s heard it before, that it has something do to with her. But she can’t remember.

“Yes,” Amy nods. “Yes it is. I haven’t seen her in…in a long time.” She is still looking straight at River, still searching for that something. But River doesn’t know what she’s searching for. She can’t help her.

“Oh. Is she grown up? In university?”

“Hm,” Amy says, as if she doesn’t know how to respond. River waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just sits there, swirling a spoon in her mug of coffee.

The silence grows awkward and River feels uncomfortable. She gets up, lifting her tray. “It’s been nice meeting you, Amy,” she says, trying to sound warm. It’s difficult. “I’d love to stay longer, but I really can’t.”

“Can I sit with you at lunch? Maybe at dinner too?” Amy asks, looking up at River. “I don’t really know anyone else here.”

You don’t know me either, River thinks, although she still has this strange feeling that she has indeed seen Amy before. “Sure. I look forward to it.”

“Thanks.”

\--

The grounds of the institution are beautiful. It’s one of those secluded places, tucked away in some remote little corner of a forest. The distance from civilization is supposed to be calming and soothing, but it gives River itchy feet. She needs people around her sometimes. People give her a much-needed cloak. Sometimes, she simply prefers to blend in and hide.

Still, the grounds are better than the inside of the institution. Instead of staring at the white walls and walking on the cold, marble floors, she can watch birds fly by, hear the sound of running water and feel the soft grass under her feet. Nature has always relaxed her and it continues to do so.

She brings her book with her, and sits on a wooden bench, near the small, shallow stream. The book is a heavy, leather bound volume, borrowed from the institution’s library. They told her that she is an archaeologist, a well-renowned one too. This has always rung true to River- she had found that she was very interested in ancient cultures. She’s been steaming through the books in the archaeology and history sections of the library, and the librarian, a friendly old woman, had promised to order new books for her. In the meantime, River is re-reading one of her favourites, a book about the Ancient Egyptian culture.

She opens the book and begins reading. She doesn’t get very far before a young man, dressed in scrubs, comes and takes a seat next to her. 

“Hello,” he says.

She looks up curiously. No one has ever sat with her while she’s reading- in fact, she can’t quite remember ever seeing people around, although that may just have been because she was so absorbed in her book. “Hi,” she replies tentatively. 

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” the man continues. “Perfect for sitting outside. You had the right idea.” He peers over at her book. “The Culture of Ancient Egypt. Interesting.” 

“It is,” River says, with a slight smile.

“Is it from the library? Maybe I’ll borrow it when you’re done.” 

“Yes, it is.” River tries to think of something else to say, to avert an awkward silence. “So, are you a nurse here? I’ve never seen you before.” 

“Oh!” the man blushes slightly. “How idiotic of me, not to introduce myself. Yeah, I’m a nurse. Nurse Williams. Rory. You can call me Rory. That’s my first name. And you are?” 

“Doctor River Song.”

“Oh, you’re a doctor here? I’m new, so I don’t exactly know all of the-“ 

“No,” River cut him off. “I’m a Doctor of archaeology. Not a medical doctor. I’m a patient here.”

“Ah. What are you here for?”

“PTSD. Apparently, I was in a train crash.” 

“Apparently?”

“That’s what I’m told. Don’t quite remember a lot.” River suddenly feels uncomfortable. She realizes that in the space of a few hours, she has told two people she barely knows that she doesn’t remember. That’s not normal. But at the same time, she feels comfortable with these people. They feel familiar and she feels like she can open up to them. But she doesn’t know why.

“Oh, I see. Memory loss can be associated with PTSD. I’m sure you’ll recover from it soon,” Rory smiles at her warmly and she can’t help but return the smile. 

“Thank you,” she says.

“Anyway,” he says, getting up and taking a wad of papers out of a large pocket on the front of his scrubs. “I ought to be going. Got to deliver these schedules to patients. You wouldn’t happen to be expecting a new one, would you?” 

“No,” River shakes her head.

Rory looks at the stack of papers curiously. “That’s interesting, because there’s one for you. Here, it’s right on top.” He hands it to her and she reads it carefully.

“Looks like I ought to be going to,” she says, closing her book and standing up. “My psych session’s been shifted to the morning. It’s in exactly ten minutes. I’ll see you around, Rory.”

\-- 

It takes River seven minutes to walk from the stream to the psych office, where appointments with her regular psychologist, Doctor Stevens, are held. The secretary tells her that he’s not busy and she can go in early, so she opens the door and walks in.

The door shuts behind her with a thud.

“You’re not Doctor Stevens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, more characters! I do have trouble writing Rory though, so any tips you guys may have would be much appreciated.
> 
> Again, thank you so much for all your comments and kudos- they really do help to keep this fic up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. The next chapter shall (hopefully) be up soon! If you enjoyed this, please leave a kudos or a comment to let me know what you thought x


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